Artifacts on plating. After a drought there might be problems if you
just use a simple plating out technique. In 1976 we had a severe drought
in UK and my Autumn term undergraduate classes grew scores of plates
(from soil suspensions) which were just interesting collections of
Streptomycetes and not much else! They had obviously survived, or even
done a little better than survive, and were dominant. This would effect
the chances of any other survivors coming up.
Just a thought,
Peter , Reading, UK.